RED RIVER SERIES


                             PLANETEXT CHAPBOOK #2


                                   Q*U*I*R*K

                        Narratives & Character Sketches

                               by Wesley Britton

Copyright, (c) 1996, Wesley Britton
All rights reserved.  No use may be made of this material without the expressed
permission of the author.

The Red River Series is a publication of the Texoma Poetry Society.
President: Leona Welch
Editor: Wesley Britton
Layout editor: Mark Taylor
Submission guidelines are available at the society's webpage,
http://www.grayson.edu/ecampus/texpoet.htm


NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WESLEY BRITTON is the author of numerous reference articles on literature,
popular culture, music, and history in encyclopedias, scholarly journals, and
online periodicals.  He has also written book reviews, one play, and contributes
much to the Mark Twain Forum and related publications.  Much of the verse
collected here previously appeared in both print and online magazines including
LYNX EYE, CAFE BELLES ARTES, KENSHO and FICTION ON-LINE.  He currently resides
in Sherman, TX, and teaches English at Grayson County College, Denison, Texas.
      
QUIRK is divided into two parts: sensitive truths & humorous truths.   Which is
which is debatable.

                                   Part  I

                          THROUGH GRANDMOTHER'S EYES


(Music of train blowing in night)

Through Grandmother's eyes were family
    of Kentucky country roads
    laned by wooden post fences needing
     occasional repair when her cows escaped.
      One woman & three children could chase them home.

She was a toymaker while
   granddad worked for short line railroad.

Through my mother's eyes were children
     family worth driving halfway cross country to see
     buying Christmas toys at Korvettes in September
     lay-away, paid for before Christmas.  

Through father's eyes were family
    the brother he found dead
    his son he found dead
       with other brother, sat in grandmother's
       house waiting for her to slip away

in the quiet far away from trains they loved.

An iron spike rests
   on the mantle, uprooted

from the tracks.  The train does
    not notice but sings in the night
    like songs of whales.

The last time I saw Grandmother we stepped off her porch
   & I saw us through her eyes
      as we left for the last time.

I was behind her eyes one moment
   & all she saw was us.


                                     FUZZ

"You know in the sixties
     in my home township,
we had one cop, one constable for our whole county.
Judge Beamer.  Old guy, daughter in my class.
   I leaned over her huddled against the school hall wall
   in fallout drills
   as we practiced for Russian invasion.
Called him once on a dog bite.

Then, we got to junior high and they hired
     a police chief & built a cop station
     by the Skat Oil gas station
     & then hired two cops
     & put in two traffic lights
     & a new gas station opened up across
     the highway & people

      started dying
      crossing the highway.

"Chief was divorced, left his second wife down the street.
Step & step family new center of township
Like Stephens' jar in Tennessee.

He's gone, a series of fuzz come through now
Like football players in helmets
     whose faces you never see or know or forget.
Wish I'd married Judge Beamer's daughter."

                        MAGGIE & RICHARD IN ROOM 330

"Please marry me," I asked
sitting on our bed side,
she, older, looked evenly back
thru blue eyes framed in Dutch-blonde hair, 
her lost childhood Wisconsin health
beneath the surface of her thirty-three years
shone momentarily thru.

Her lean lines were hid in slacks,
her metal pacemaker two inches below
          her perfect breast hooked to broken bits & animal parts
          she called her heart. 

She sighed at her architect of dreams
    & body gifts, nearly too many
    but she loved him for
    seeing loving that way.

She pushed my voice back into my mouth &
     walked to her dresser &
     walked back with long, colorful shoebox.

"Here is my dowry."

I opened the flowing red & black box of bills
     medical bills, some ten years old.

"My heart debt," she said, "Doctors,
     techs, tests, labs, surgeons, radiologists,
     therapy & I will still die
     before you.  Count on it."

         (Her nightly nightmares, long, fish-eyed white porcelain
         corridors of white masked never-never land surgeon's  
         knives.  Who killed the unicorn?)

"Couldn't pay this in a lifetime" I said

"No.  So I won't marry you.
     which means I love you."

                           THE UNFORTUNATE FUNERAL

In the quiet breeze through her hair
the thin wife stood over her husband's grave
framed by her girls & the camera box
aimed square on her
peculiar moment in the sun

fifteen years after
the battle of divorce
sent their children
spiralling into disconnected paths.

& she tried not to look
into the open hole
or into the camera's eye

knowing she didn't belong there
knowing how he would cringe
knowing she stood there passively

for the camera shot
by his survivors
in the green field
below the canopy

& she thought of the other men,
man after man after him

Well, Charlie worked out o.k.
sitting at home waiting for her
dinner.

& the cameras did their work
like the smiles of her 
black and white wedding

not a pretty day like this
not a colorful day like this 
with all the flowers.

Weren't there flowers at the wedding?
She couldn't remember.

There must have been flowers.
But the pictures of gray
were what held her memory.


                                    DAVID


My brother wrote occasional poems
   emotional and ethereal

He wrote about marijuana & his little visions
   his wife used them in court to
   show him a bad father.

He wasn't.  The only poetry reading he ever had
   was by the prosecuting attorney.
    He had to defend his poems by saying they
      were old, out of date, not him anymore.

But they were.

For his funeral, he asked for Beethoven's Ninth
  but organist only played five bars
  in barrage of church organ music no one should love.

His friends, the Bahai came by with guitars.
   Dave would have loved that & joined in

  but Dad chased them away--not Baptists from good homes.
  If Dave would've known he'd been this cheated
   He wouldn't have killed himself.

                                    DANNY

I always said when I made a good income
I'd sponsor a poor child thru one of the
televised agencies.

When I worked at three colleges simultaneously,
I sponsored Danny in Ecuador.  Sent $20.00 a month.
They always wanted more.  With each bulletin & picture
& drawing they asked for $25.00 for Easter, Christmas,
parent's day, family day,
I couldn't keep up with the guilt.

Then, the jobs evaporated.
The dryer broke & we dried clothes
on line in bathroom with gas heater.
Haven't worn totally dry clothes in months.

Had to give up little Danny whom I bought,
I guess,
rubber boots, netting for his bed,
(he lives on a crowed pier on the ocean)
& perhaps some clothes.  I resent
not being able to help more.  All I
can do is not vote for damn Republicans. 




                                    Part II



                                 TICKLING YOU

Tickling you is two poems
One I'm writing on your soles,
the other is you laughing out loud.



                             BIRDS IN THE ATTIC

By the way, the old hotel only used three floors
   rising on the basement tombs,
   fourth shut down for decades.

A floor of ghost town rooms
  cobwebbed, bare furniture.
  Trevor's kingdom, where he 
   contemplated his crow's feet prematurely
   etched in prison  

   with the only key to the
   forgotten elevator button,

he had one room full of his maintenance tools
Another room was his

   marijuana farm.

     No one knew where it was.
     No one knew it was there.

He sold pot in the Waters hotel
    confident a room by room search
    wouldn't reveal
      the thriving, sun-nourished vegetables
      of calm and patience in the bare wood halls.

But

One day Trevor discovered his vault
  full of pigeons
  wall to wall high pigeons
  eating pot, little
  baggies poked full of beak holes
  pot dust on everything.

He dived in to chase them out
  stuttering with anger
  but they were stoned
  & flew into walls
    other rooms
    & out broken windows.

The pot was gone.
    Damn pigeons. 

                                  FRECKLES

In Indian scripture
the holy king
came to heaven
his mother & four brothers dead
because they were not holy
enough in their earthly bodies

but he stood with his dog
whom the gatekeepers
refused to admit

arguing with the holy king
who said he would wait
with his dog
who offered nothing
but protection & devotion

so they let the dog in
who proved to be a god himself

so, dad, the dog stays in the house
despite the hair &
the occasional accident.

                        EMILY THE COW (A True Story)


Knowing her fate,
She cleared the stable fence
& at the rate of her gait,
was clearly in no mood for predestination.

For forty days & forty nights
She lived with the deer in the woods
but when they found her it took little fight
to recapture the little cow that could.

Two hundred pounds were lost from her girth,
now unfit for the butcher's kill.
They determined one dollar was all she was worth 
so the Peace Temple bought her
to graze on their grounds
surrounded by vegetarians. 

                                  HEADACHE

      "I have a headache," she said,
      her face turned away on the pillow.

      "I think," he said
      "Slow hand loving on your favorite places
      would cure your headache & make you
      feel wonderful."

      "I have a headache," she said,
      "Please don't touch me."

      He nodded & went to the bathroom
      & left the seat up.
 

                                                    WHY FRANKLIN SWORE OFF SEX

"I don't care for sex anymore,"
he said, a wide curl of smoke 
flowing up his face.

"How can you say that?" she said
startled straight.

"For a woman to say yes," he replied,
   blowing  more smoke in the space between,

"The stars have to be out
   & in the right position,
the dishes in the sink,
      the kids in bed,
the bills paid,
      the cable off.

The weather can't be too cold or hot.
      Agreeing with her every opinion,
afraid to nudge her away with just the wrong wiff,
      every subject must be talked out,
then maybe she'll consent to the big favor
   if you don't touch her too soon or too late
or at the wrong place
     & have to assure and reassure her of your
every meaning & feeling & devotion
     & hope
     the mood
       is full."

He blew more smoke in the space and looked at her.

"I'm too tired anticipating you," he blew 
a perfect ring,
   "to leap through your hoops." 
      THE CONDOM STORM OF '72 (or, are you wearing your rubbers Junior?)

Well, Paul broke into the rubber machines last night
looking for quarters but failed and
showed up at our poker game dumping
a foot-high pile of

individually shrink-wrapped little boxes
of rubbers of all sizes 'n colors 
on my single bed

'n we drunken boys blew up our balloons and
tossed them out the boarding house window
'n we must of made a major dent in that pile

cause the next morning I set out
to walk my hangover to the breakfast deli
but stopped on a dime seeing
the sticky balloons on

      cars
                               'n windows

 'n parking meters

           'n poles

'n grass,                the sidewalk,
          'n  the street.  

      'n my landlady's front porch

where she stood with arms folded
 'n tapping foot 'n
wishing to laugh admonition--

"I know who's behind this one, Britton."

'n I walked into the deli where the condom storm
replaced all other news 'n I stayed mute not wanting
to let on we hadn't planned the whole thing
to start with.   

You should have seen it, 
it was a wonderful sight.
More colorful than Christmas
bathed in prophylactic lights. 

                             NORMAL INTELLIGENCE

The blind man stood by the pool gate
in the dark after hours
tapping the red point

while the cop berated his friends
for sneaking into the pool in the dark
to flirt and swim
and the cop kept pointing to
the sign of rules

"Anyone with normal intelligence," he said
"could read this sign."

& the blind man tapped and said
"They're getting out,
no big deal."

But the red-faced cop insisted,
pointing again at the sign

"Anyone with normal intelligence 
could read this sign."

But the man with the cane
clearly wasn't looking at the sign
so the cop raised his voice again
"I keep telling you,
anyone with normal intelligence
can read this sign."  

He waited for an answer.

And the blind man tapped
and the cop tapped
until his partner whispered
into his ear

what the white cane meant

while the friends walked out
laughing
& the cop yelled at their backs

"If I see you drunks driving, I'll take you in!"

& the blind man thought

"Anyone with normal intelligence
would know
I'm not driving anywhere."